Comments on: Frequently Asked Questions

By: Timo Elliott

Timo Elliott — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 01:43:03 +0000

Unfortunately, that’s a (really annoying) Flash security “feature”. The server that is serving up the feed has to explicitly have a special “crossdomain.xml” file on the server that specifies if Flash is allowed to access from a different server.

One way around it is to use the offline version of the tools (link somewhere in the instructions), where you’re using the swf on your PC

By: Scott Thompson

Scott Thompson — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:02:03 +0000

When I attempt to put in a different feed I get an error saying:

To access external data, add a cross-domain policy file to the external data web server.

For more information, on the Adobe website, see the article “Cross-domain Policy File Specification”.

If the problem persists, contact the file creator or your system administrator.

By: Timo Elliott

Timo Elliott — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:19:23 +0000

Yes, there’s support for custom feeds, so in theory it works for any ATOM feed. In practice, different feeds can have different specifications, so it might not work completely (e.g. not showing avatars, etc.). If you’re building your own feed, and it looks like Twitter’s, then it should work perfectly…

By: Scott Thompson

Scott Thompson — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:11:24 +0000

This is fantastic! Can the prezi tool be used with a custom feed also? I was also thinking it would be great to build some basic gameshow type of displays like typical ARSs can do. What do you think?

By: Timo Elliott

Timo Elliott — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:22:22 +0000

Jon,

The slide refreshes every 30 seconds — any more frequently unfortunately runs the risk of triggering Twitter’s “rate limiting”. I’d love to make it user-configurable, but that will have to wait until the next version of Xcelsius (the software I used to make the tools).

You can however set the search term in advance. Right-mouse click the tool in PowerPoint, choose “properties”, find the “Movie” line that has the tool URL and add “?keyword=whateveryouwant” to the end of the URL. Add “&locked=1″ as well if you want “lock” it so the search term box doesn’t show…

Regards,
Timo

By: Jon Marks

Jon Marks — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:05:10 +0000

Hi Timo,

Absolutely love it. Nice work. Two small questions about the Feedback slide. Is it possible to a) Increase the refresh frequency and b) set up the options so I don’t need to enter the search term every time I re-open the PPTX?

Thanks again
Jon

By: Timo Elliott

Timo Elliott — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:27:31 +0000

Varik,

(1) There’s a PowerPoint 2003 version just under the big green download button on the main page.
(2) The “X”s are normal — put the slides in Presentation Mode (with an internet connection), wait a few seconds, and you should see the tools appear…

Good luck!

By: Varik Torsteinsen

Varik Torsteinsen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:40:27 +0000

Timo, does this content only work in PowerPoint 2007?

I see it’s a PPTX file, but the luck of the draw is I am running PowerPoint 2003 SP3. It can read a PPTX but I’m guessing the content showing as big X’s means I have to upgrade.

Any comments on that?